Rogue Legacy is a genealogical rogue-"LITE" where anyone can be a hero. Each time you die, your child will succeed you. Every child is unique. One child might be colorblind, another might have vertigo-- they could even be a dwarf. That's OK, because no one is perfect, and you don't have to be perfect to win this game.

Reviews

"Rogue Legacy is a must-play, and a steal at its $15 price tag." 90/100
--GameFront

"Rogue Legacy rewarded my patience and tenacity; that's a lesson any developer can take from its twisted family tree." 9/10
--Polygon

"This is a game that won't just eat up your time, but it will devour it." 8.5/10
--Destructoid

"... an immensely rewarding action game that strikes a terrific balance between permadeath and progress." 8.5/10
--GameSpot

Steam Big Picture

About This Game

Rogue Legacy is a genealogical rogue-"LITE" where anyone can be a hero.

Each time you die, your child will succeed you. Every child is unique. One child might be colorblind, another might have vertigo-- they could even be a dwarf.

That's OK, because no one is perfect, and you don't have to be perfect to win this game. But you do have to be pretty darn good because this game is HARD. Fortunately, every time you die all the gold you've collected can be used to upgrade you manor, giving your next child a step up in life and another chance at vanquishing evil.

But you shouldn't listen to me. You should check out the trailer. It explains the game better then I ever could.

If you really want to READ about this game though, then you should check out our bullet list below.

Here's what Rogue Legacy IS:

A procedurally generated adventure. Explore new castles with every life.

Rogue-lite. Your character dies, but with each passing your lineage grows and becomes stronger.

Tons of unique traits that makes each playthrough special. Ever wanted to be dyslexic? Now you can!

More than 8 classes to choose from (9)! Each class has unique abilities that change the way you play the game.

Over 60 different enemies to test your skills against. Hope you like palette-swaps!

I first played Rogue Legacy at a friend's place, trading off the controller at each death. It wasn't much, but it got me instantly hooked on how fun it was. So hooked, that I downloaded Steam, bought the game for the full $15, and bought a $30 wired Xbox 360 controller... and I don't even have any Xboxes. All this for this one game... and it was worth it.

Rogue Legacy plays like Castlevania and Super Ghouls N Ghosts. You move, jump, attack, and use a secondary weapon. The uniqueness comes into play when you die, which you will... a lot. Once you die, you will be brought to a selection of three hiers to play as next. Each one has a random character class, secondary weapon, and set of traits. Classes determine certain stats and abilities. Secondary weapons, or spells as they are called, use up MP. That's all pretty basic stuff. But the traits are very interesting. Some traits are helpful, like a speed increase. Others are harmful, like giving your attacks no enemy knockback. And some are just... well... neutral things... like making everything black and white. Your heirs have a chance of having two, one, or none of the traits at random. With all the random factors, you have to really get lucky... or pick the lesser of three evils. Is getting your prefered class worth the traits? Are the spells to your liking? It also makes you think about the next area... skills.

After selecting your heir, you are then brought to a skill tree. You inhereit the gold of your dead relatives I guess, and you can spend it on upgrading all kinds of things, from stats, to passives, to new character classes. Do you want to build up a magic or melee character? Maybe focus on a specific class? Or do you want to play it safe and try to build up well rounded skills to work with the random factos? It's a lot to consider when purchasing points in the skill tree. And be careful. Every time you buy an upgrade in the skill tree, all of the others become more expensive. So plan accordingly. And try not to spend it all in one place because...

... there's another screen. Yes, another screen where you can do even more character customization. IF you buy them in the skill tree, you can open up three different shops outside the caslte: The blacksmith, the enchantress, and the architect. The blacksmith sells you armor and swords with different stats and perks, but you'll need to find the blueprints first so he knows how to make them first... some blacksmith, eh? The enchantress does roughly the same thing. She sells you enchantment of your armor and sword after you've found the appropriate runes. The big difference is that the blacksmith's wares have weight, meaning you can only carry certain pieces until your carrying capacity improves, while the runes are weightless. It give you lots of customization options between the two and the skill tree. The architect has only one purpose. He locks down the castle. The levels are randomly generated every time enter, but if you agree to give the architect a percentage of your gold on the current life, he will lock down the previous map so that you are not lost in a random new place. This can be helpful for retrying bosses, but be warned. Enemies will be back, chests will cannot be reopened, and as mentioned your gold gain is reduced for this entire life. So consider it for saving time and getting around.

Lastly, at the gates of the castle, you are faced with Charon, the gatekeeper. He will allow you to enter at the cost of all of your gold. This is where a lot of the motivation is built for the game. You'll want to spend as much gold as possible between the skill tree and the shops since you'll be losing it all anyway. You can't simply keep amassing gold over a number of lives. If you want a nice, expensive upgrade, you'd better not die and keep getting that gold. It's a nice way to give death some gravity, as getting upgrades and new characters already seems like REWARDING you for dying, and that needed to be checked and balanced somehow.

The basic goal is to become strong enough to survive the four areas, beat their bosses, and then defeat the final boss. There are lots of cool extra things to find along the way, like super bosses, passive items, challenge rooms, and even some cool secrets here and there. The game CAN become grindy, and if you don't enjoy grinding, then you might get a little upset at the difficulty. However, you always have the option to not buy anything and just try to beat the challenges old school style. Nothing bars you from doing so. So it's a nice duality. The game also goes from being a platformer in the earlier stages to being more akin to a bullet hell in the later ones. Master your movements, improve your aim, and pick your battles.

No game is perfect, so I had a few complaints. My main gripe with the game, though it's not a HUGE one, is that it doesn't really give you much incentive to stay alive. There's the thrill of getting more gold to get more upgrades, but eventually you'll want to keep dying so you can actually purchase and USE the upgrades. The only reason you'll want to NOT die, aside from adding to your gold count, is to beat a boss or, in the case of the final boss, beat the game. There are a good number of different room layouts and enemy combinations within, plus the challenge rooms the pop up now and then. However, after playing for so many hours, especially if you're like me and get really grindy with it, you'll start to recognize all the room types repeating. Even though the four areas are supposed to be different, they are all pretty similar. They have the same room types with different skins, more or less. And the enemies aren't really all that different between areas. They're mostly just more powerful versions of previous enemies in the harder areas, with maybe one or two new ones added. More variety would've helped, but there's already a lot of different things to deal with that it may be too complex to have more of everything, so I understand. Also, there weren't a lot of instances of this, but a handful of times I found weird floor glitches where gold fell through and I couldn't get it. That, and every once in a while my character would fall through and start randomly appearing in all the adjacent rooms for a few seconds. Nothing game breaking nor frequent, but a little spooky when they happened. Also... the music will wear away your sanity, but then again, so will anything when you play the game as much as I have.

There are lots of customization options, lots of random elements, lots of strategy involved, lots of skill required... and lots of hours of playtime and replayability in this game. I got 96 hours in my first playthrough. I love Rogue Legacy. The gameplay, the music, the sound, the graphics... everything comes together to make a game that feels like it was made for ME. It's the first time since Banjo-Kazooie that a game has felt like it was made just for me. It's an amazing feeling, and I can't recommend this game enough. Easily my favorite game on Steam and has instantly worked its way into being one of my favorite games of all time. I'd really say to just buy it now. Sure, you can wait for a sale if you're skeptical... or cheap. But it's definitely worth the $15 price tag. I mean, I ended up esentially putting down $45 to play this game, and it was well worth it.

10/10 Would complete entire skill tree again(And yes, I seriously did that. How else do you think I got 96 hours in one playthrough?)

Rogue Legacy is a 2D platforming action game by Cellar Door Games, an independent Canadian studio. It’s categorized as a roguelike, which for the uninitiated, is a sub-genre that typically includes procedurally generated levels and permanent death (meaning once you die, you start over from the beginning). Rogue Legacy has both of those, but it adds in some RPG mechanics which make the imposing threat of death easier to swallow, while not altogether curbing the difficulty that fans of the genre have come to expect.

At the beginning of Rogue Legacy, you are a generic sword-wielding hero who is tasked to fight through a dungeon. There’s some reason for doing so, and there are diaries strewn about the world to help piece together exactly what’s going on, but for the most part the narrative is in the back seat throughout Rogue Legacy and that’s totally fine.

It’s hard to overstate just how much fun the minute to minute gameplay is in Rogue Legacy. Controls feel tight and the mechanics are all-around solid and enjoyable. Any fan of 2D platformers such as Spelunky will find themselves at home here. The dungeon is split into four separate areas, and while they are distinct in aesthetic and difficulty, they do tend to blend together after ten or twenty hours in the game.

The main distinguishing factor of Rogue Legacy is the way in which death, and subsequent life after death, occurs. Upon dying (which will happen -- a lot), you get to choose a new “heir” among three choices to attempt another run through the game. Each heir can have all sorts of randomly assigned genetic traits which affect how the game plays. Discovering the novelty of some of these traits is fun in and of itself, so I won’t ruin them here, but I will say the traits are pretty well balanced, creative, and occasionally good for a laugh.

The other unique aspect of death is that your character continually gets stronger in whatever way you choose. As you traipse throughout the dungeon, your character collects gold from chests and enemies. You can invest gold after dying in a huge amount of ways; you can boost stats such as strength and armor, unlock new classes, or buy new equipment. It’s almost impossible to beat the game during the early hours because of the upgrade system, and how weak your initial character is. Having to rely on more than sheer skill may be a problem for some, but the feeling of progression through boosting your inherent power is pretty satisfying (as in most RPGs) and makes the whole experience very addicting.

Toward the end of Legacy, when your character is strong enough to make it most of the way through the dungeon before dying, each run can take about 30 minutes or more, and I found it becomes a bit of a grind. Luckily the grind doesn’t last too long (at least it didn’t for me) before you become powerful enough to beat the final boss and finish the dungeon. There is a nicely done New Game+ option, and it’s a telling sign that I immediately dove back in upon completion my first time around.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time with Rogue Legacy. The RPG mechanics do an excellent (or evil, depending on how you look at it) job of cranking up the “Just one more run” factor that roguelikes are infamous for. Blending rewarding and difficult gameplay with a really smart way to make death a little less punishing goes a long way to make Rogue Legacy one of the best games in the genre.

+ nevertheless every death brings progress+ demanding, but with practice always possible- difficulty varies by random hero and levels

Quests:

+ many secrets in the castle+ tricky fairies cases-tasks+ very hard bosses- but really just very thick versions of the standard opponents are- almost non-existent story

Character System:

+ always new random hero+ unlockable and upgradeable classes+ heroes across upgrades by free expansion of the family home

Combat System:

+ opponents with their own attack patterns+ each class heroes and feature allows other strategies+ useful skills- weapons and spells can not be change at any time

Items:

+ weapons and armor with different bonuses+ diverse runes upgrades and combinations+ hidden disposable bonus items- differences between weapons and armor are limited

Game Size:

+ on each pass random castle with four areas+ new game plus+ long-term motivational structure of the dynasty- overall little variety

Multiplayer: no multiplayer

Death has never been so motivating Rogue Legacy sends our heroes after a few minutes into the grave, but we play with their heirs continue and build a dynasty in the test for millennia on.

In Rogue Legacy can measure the average life expectancy of a hero-digit minute range. Actually, our goal is to fight our way through the four sections of a sinister castle and kill four infernal bosses - only then will the golden gate opens in the entrance room and the walls reveals its secrets. So we hop fall through and castle rooms, and beat all kinds of monsters out of the way, both the design of the levels and opponents (bone-throwing skeletons!) While striking to remember old Castlevania times and provide cozy nostalgia chills.

Not only the heirs, and the prey Castle is newly generated randomly each time. And there's a lot to discover. Well, the story-thin shreds in the form of unset diaries of a previous adventurer let us rather cold. But the more eager we hunt new blueprints for the blacksmith or fairies boxes that we can only be opened when we reach under certain conditions. After a while, but we recognize certain set pieces over and over again, and the opponents are often re-colored and stronger varieties of old enemies - even the four bosses.

Can so often to die but not be healthy. Or it should at least be frustrating. And yes, sometimes it's that too, especially when I eyeball the tenth run on a handbreadth life points down to have blood splattering giant - and yet it going again at the last moment. But even failures motivate at Rogue Legacy. Because I have learned something out of it, because death was my fault and I can do it better next time. And because despite all the hardship and a carrot in front of the nose keeps me the game, because even my failures make my heroes dynasty stronger. If the motivation it out kinks, which is closer to the random number generator used but a bit too often the same blocks. But I really just do not have time to annoy me about it, I have to earn my heirs a new helmet. it's worth exploring Rogue Legacy's castle again and again and again.

Score: 86 / 100

gamestar.de

Sorry for my bad english.Thanks for reading! If you Like my Review, give me a Thumbs up in Steam.Your help is greatly appreciated :)

At $2.99 right now, buying this is borderline criminal, considering how much fun it is, and how much replay value there is. If you like Rogue-likes, buy it. If you like indie games with fun mechanics, buy it. If you like Metrovania-type games, buy it. If you enjoy games at all, buy it!!

Absolutely fantastic game. It is so good, that I, a random person on the internet, took 15 minutes out of his schedule to tell people to play it.

The premise is simple and engaging, progressing through a randomly generated castle. Enemies are varied and can get challenging. The story is hilarious, and while not groundbreaking, tends to fix a smile firmly on my face. Gameplay is simple in theory, but with the Equipment and Runes system, can get some nice depth going. It is one of those games you sit down to when you have 30 mins to spare before a big meeting, and end up just deciding to miss it.

Got this during the Steam sales at a discounted price, but would willingly pay full price again.

A beautiful addition to the roguelike genre. Random generation of levels AND characters ensures that challenges remain fresh, and the incremental progression keeps it addictive. A must-buy for people who enjoy this type of game.

This is a good rogue like game that has an interesting progression system.

This progression system is really one of the key reason why I put so many hours into this game. Most rogue like games have perma death. Where if you lose thats it, its done you start from the beginning. Personally I did not like the idea of perma death in my games. I like to feel like I am working towards something and not losing everything just to try to do it again. With this said, many people who like rogue like games will disagree whole heartily with my decision and I understand that. Well with this game people get a little bit of both worlds.

This game has perma death and progression. Each character that goes into that death trap of a castle will eventually die but his or her's gold will be sent to their child where he or she can spend it on upgrades to their castle (that supplies skills, armory, stats etc) and to buy armor, accessories and even lock the previous dungeon so you can attempt it again. Then that child will die and send it's money to the next child and so on. So people get their perma death and progression all in one.

The gameplay is fun with platformer elements to it as well as rpg. Its a 2d side scroller where you go around in a randomly generated dungeon looting for gold, trying to survive and fighting bosses. Thanks to the option to lock the previous dungeon you can keep retrying the bosses again and again, without searching for the boss door. Which is nice because the bosses can be extremely hard if your not prepared. Also the dungeon itself is hard as well and you will find that it will take many attempts before finding the boss doors.

So overall, the progression system as well as the gameplay makes for an addicting game. With this said, their are a few issues I have with the game. When your character dies you get a selection of three (maybe four) randomly generated characters to choose from. All of these characters have different classes, special attacks and/or different qualities. Although the qualities like vertigo can really mess with you, most of the other qualities are forgettable after a while but it does add another element to the game at times. The random generated abilities on the other hand, were for the most part useless because most of the classes (except maybe mage and spell sword) had very little Mp to work with. I found that the normal attacks were sufficient in getting me through the dungeons. It could have really helped if the characters had a bigger Mp pool to work with and maybe some different spells and abilities.

Overall, good game with a few issues with the characters abilities, still very fun to play and has a game plus mode so good replayability as well.

Rogue Legacy is the sort of modern retro classic that dreams are made of.

Entering the looming castle, unaware what awakes you inside, it quickly becomes apparent that this is not the simple 16-bit platformer it first appears. It cleverly blends genres, from roguelikes to RPGs to traditional platformers and bullet hell shooters, into a consistent and dangerously addictive blend of beautiful originality that feels fresh yet instantly familiar. It's also constantly and abundantly rewarding, making sure your many, many deaths feel worthwhile instead of frustrating as you continually rush back into the castle hoping this run will bring greater victories.

The concept is deceptively simple. You are the descendant of a dying king, embarking on a quest to find what lays inside this castle that will allegedly cure the king. But within moments you are struck down long before you can make it anywhere near the deepest layers of the castle. Thankfully you were rather, ahem, "friendly" in your life and know it's up to your incredibly large number of offspring to take up the sword in your place.

This then leads into RL's broad progression system, which incorporates a level of randomness while also allowing you to level your hero to better confront the monsters within the castle. No two children are ever the same, with each being a random combination of a huge amount of classes, traits, and special items they can use. For instance you could be a giant colorblind mage, or an ectomorphic shinobi that gets sent flying with every hit. It's a tad disappointing that some of the traits are merely for laughs (for instance one that causes you to pass gas with every jump), but there are enough that drastically alter the gameplay for it to be considered a success that plays largely into how you intend to approach a given run.

These runs are what I love most about RL, because they take the most compelling elements of roguelikes (such as randomized level designs), and combines them with a more approachable leveling system and patterns that can be learned and mastered. Although you lose all your gold each time you enter the castle (at least at first), what you manage to attain can then be used to buy better gear, equip skill runes, or level your skills and unlock more classes. This leverages the difficulty away from impossibly hardcore, into something far less daunting. I constantly like like I was making progress even when I died, and it's this constant drive that makes finally overcoming a particularly challenging boss or section so satisfying. Overcoming RL's obstacles was easily some of the most rewarding moments I've ever had while playing a game, and finally beating it felt like the epic accomplishment it ought to have.

Don't take this to mean RL is an easy game, because rest assure you will get pounded into the dirt more times than you can count. But it's not an insurmountable challenge, and it's in this that I feel it most succeeds at turning hardcore design philosophies into something everyone can enjoy. It makes the difficulty something you can realistically see yourself beating if you just try one more time; upgrade one more stat; find one more blueprint. It's the best sort of "hard" game that knows when to reward you and when to hold you up, only long enough to keep the hunger for victory ever present and relief just out of reach.

Even though I've conquered the castle, beaten the bosses, and discovered what lays within I don't see myself putting Rogue Legacy down anytime soon, and that more than anything is what sets it apart as a brilliant experience that I want to play over and over again. Every element of its design is polished to a glorious sheen, glued together by it's fantastic artwork and mind blowing soundtrack, and it's relentless attempts to empower you while always leaving you something more to accomplish. Everything about it is just freaking rad, and hopefully you realized that already and are now metaphorically running to pick it up.

Rogue Legacy is a game about risk, chance, and a little bit of luck. It harkens back to the days when Simon Belmont could only take four hits before succumbing to sweet oblivion, or when Arthur's armor burst off his body upon simply touching a defiled zombie. Modern conventions and some wacky characteristics keep Rogue Legacy feeling fresh despite its old-school charm, though these sources of intrigue can prove a bit frustrating at times.

Following a short prologue and introduction to death, Rogue Legacy tasks you with exploring a castle with four distinct areas, dispatching bosses as you proceed towards the ultimate goal of defeating the final evil locked behind a gold door. There's a little bit of story told in journal entries scattered about the environment, but mostly this is a tale about killing monsters and gathering loot, and the game is better for it. We didn't need much explanation back in the NES days other than, "Dracula has risen, now go kill him good!" With the recent glut of cutscenes and dialogue in today's big-budget AAA world, Rogue Legacy comes across as a breath of fresh air with its focused and directed nature. "Explore the castle, get stuff, and power up" are reasons enough to scour the corridors of this huge deathtrap.

Rogue Legacy takes advantage of a distinct 16-bit graphical palette that adds to its old-school charm. Your on-screen avatars are pixelated and slightly deformed, holding his/her sword awkwardly as they run through the castle on short, stubby legs. Giant skeletons, headless horses, robed mages, and various other nefarious creatures attempt to halt your progress with colorful attacks and old-timey patterns requiring a great deal of memorization. Rogue Legacy isn't going to blow anyone away with amazingly intricate environments. You have a castle area, a forest area, and dungeon-y areas. Familiar almost to a fault, you'd be forgiven in thinking that this game is quant and simple... until you actually play it and get your ♥♥♥ handed to you.

I died on the second room on my first castle run. This was my first real death, and there were many (...many) more before I finally started to get my bearings and understand the mechanics at play. Enemies hit hard and fast, barely giving you any time to figure them out before they fill the screen with large area-based attacks ranging from fireballs to ice blasts and everything in-between. Controlling your character feels almost too precise and tight for this type of game. You can easily change direction mid-jump, and you'll probably overcorrect and hurt yourself if you grew up with the Belmonts. Within an hour, though, the controls feel great and really open you up to pulling off some intense maneuvers and stunts, though the downward strike necessary for some traversal mechanics never feels quite right.

I didn't really understand Rogue Legacy when I first started playing and grew frustrated quickly as a result. Dying so early without any real progress felt odd, and I was rolling my eyes with some of the "gotcha" moments with spike traps and large enemies hitting me immediately after a screen transition. Death, however, reveals the wonderfully modern conventions of RL that make it stand out amongst a sea of "old-school" games released during this massive indie boom in the industry. Every time you die, you select a new character from a list of three, and then you get the opportunity to spend your ancestor's hard-earned loot on upgrades for your family. These range from the ability to lock the randomly designed castle into its previous incarnation to new character classes and stat boosts. Better still, Rogue Legacy incentivizes you to spend all of that money because you go back down to zero upon reentering the castle. Leveling your family yields huge results that fundamentally changes the way you play the game and perceive death. Dying results in initial disappointment, followed by the joy of selecting skills and stats, and then finally a return to the castle to find more loot. It's truly wicked game design, provoking you to play just one more character before turning the game off. You're almost always unlocking new pieces of gear or abilities, and you even get to tailor your play style with runes and special skills. Maybe you like to focus on double jumping, or perhaps you want to lower the level of your enemies but receive reduced rewards as a result. Rogue Legacy feels deeply personal and meticulously constructed, never coming across as a tedious affair.

Character selection quickly becomes the driving force when you venture into the castle. The classes all perform differently and most are best suited for certain situations. The speedy, hard-hitting ninja makes regular enemies feel like a joke, but he is probably too squishy for some of the more terrifying bosses. The miner gets a huge boost to gold pickups, making him an essential part of your family's economy. Still, some classes feel a bit useless if you haven't invested enough of your family's fortune into their chosen stat. My mages felt horribly underpowered, making some runs more frustrating than others. This becomes truly detrimental when trying to tackle one of the game's bosses. I waited nearly six generations before finally getting a paladin capable of taking out the last boss, which proved more aggravating than exhilarating. Sure, I was able to power level a bit, but I wanted to get something done, and it's hard to break from that line of thought when you die waiting to accomplish a goal. This was the one time Rogue Legacy frustrated me, but that comes with the randomization of both the castle and your family tree.

Nearly every selected character brings along some kind of trait to liven up the gameplay a bit. One guy might be colorblind, leading to a black and white screen, while another character may have irritable bowel syndrome, resulting in a great deal of fart noises coming from your speakers. Usually, these traits provide little more than entertainment and a bit of individual flavor for each excursion, but they can sometimes prove beneficial or outright disastrous to your forward momentum. I was never a fan of getting characters who are giant, for example, as this made them an easy target for some of the nasty projectile attacks enemies like to spam.

Rogue Legacy makes a lot of really smart decisions to keep it feeling fresh while maintaining some pretty old-school game design. "Hard but fair" usually comes to mind whenever you finally fall victim to the onslaught, but randomness brings both variety and some frustration to the proceedings. You have to go with the flow and understand that maybe you won't get the right class for a given situation, that some people just aren't meant to vanquish evil. Some of your offspring may be simple cannon fodder, while others are little more than accountants looking to build up your future heroes. Death is almost a reward in a way, and perhaps more designers should look to keep things fresh and interesting even when the dreaded "Game Over" finally appears on screen.

So much yes, this game is worth every damn penny it costs, almost too cheap for such a good game! It's unique, challenging and a ton of fun! It's a casual game that you can play at any time pretty much! Everything about this game is so much YES! Exploration, collecting and just kicking monster ♥♥♥ is so much fun! Cellar Door games has made probaly one of my favourite games! Only thing it is missing is steam cloud, so i can't play the same file on both my laptop and my PC. I can't say anything more i think (except for saying that you should go get it), but it is just... Amazing. Easily a 9.5/10, One of my favourite games, Cellar Door really nailed it.

Was really excited for this game, and as you can see from my play time I believed in it for a while. The platforming actually is rather good (with a tendency to use too many spikes for my taste) as is the funny genealogical system. But the major sticking point is the permanent STATS progression. At first it sounded great, you get the blood rush of permadeath with something to carry over! Unfortunately it means that initially you can't get very far without being completely destroyed, and that later on the early parts of the dungeons will likely be no-challenge pieces of cake (can't tell if they put mechanics in place to prevent this, didn't get that far with the unlocks).

Also, unless you're the absolute god of platformers you'll sooner or later hit a progression slowdown where you just can't get a run that's profitable enough to unlock anything.

I think the lesson from this, and I'm gonna repeat it in every rogue-lite review I do, is that permanently unlocking new alternate classes and new stuff that gets fed to the random generator for a run is great, but permanent stat progression just doesn't work in a roguelike, it makes it GRINDY.

I do not regret getting it, but I have a hard time recommending to anyone. It is not that it is just a difficult game, but it feels like it is just being difficult for difficult's sake. Losing is not fun in this game. The family tree system is only cute at the beginning. It is a fun enough platformer but the progression of the game is too much of a grind to be able to get better stats to be able to do anything.

Player death is an important part of most videogames and has been for a long time. Every monster wants to kill you, and then you have to start again from scratch. A lot of games hold your hand, dust you down and sit you right back where you left off, as if nothing ever happened. Not so in Rogue Legacy, death is the most important thing. Death may start your game from scratch, but it also allows you to move on, to grow your dynasty and make them stronger. It’s also about killing things and trashing furniture for spare change, but that sounds far less impressive.

Rogue Legacy is a ‘Metroidvania’ game, a platformer where your character navigates a location, backtracking where necessary and trying to solve puzzles while on your way to a final boss. As you find out pretty quickly, Rogue Legacy is not as forgiving as those games were. Your first character runs, jumps, hacks monsters, loots gold and dies. You get to see images of everything you killed and are told to press A to move on.

And move on, you must. Instead of starting from scratch, you pick one of three children, but now there are different classes, traits and spells. The opening classes are all fairly limited and the spells are pretty basic. What really stands out are their traits, and I’ll get on to those shortly.

Once you’ve picked your character, you spend your dead parent’s gold on improving your home, then pay the rest to a grim gatekeeper to enter the monsters’ castle and start again. The interior of the castle will change each time, presenting procedurally-generated rooms filled with monsters and traps. You traverse the castle trying not to die and lasting as long as possible, delving deeper into the castle.

It sounds simple, and it pretty much is. The progression and the randomly-made characters make all the difference in each playthrough. Your home helps improve your chances with each successive generation. You can upgrade classes, add new ones, get stat bumps and even buy new equipment which will inevitably be passed on to your next of kin, and oh what glorious children you’ve had.

I said before that you have three children to choose from, but sometimes it’s less a choice of how you want to play your next life, more like having to pick which dysfunctional mess of a child won’t hinder you the most. Your first kid looks to be the most powerful, gigantism doubling his sprite size and his class is barbarian king, but he has vertigo and while you play as him the screen’s flipped upside down. Your next choice is skinny and easily knocked back, but he’s a mage with OCD and will gain mana for each piece of furniture he cleans away (destroys). The third is the weak knave, but his dyslexia jumbles any words you read as him around, and his nostalgia simply puts a sepia tone on the game until he’s dead. Do you play it safe with the knave or pick the mage and hope to hang back from any monsters? It’s a difficult choice.

Each trait could potentially add something minor, although bald or gay characters have no difference to play style. You might be blessed with no feeling in your feet and not set off pressure traps. You might be totally immune to pain though, and that means you can’t see your health bar. Gigantism makes your sprite tougher and taller while characters with dwarfism are able to slip through secret passages. Each combination of traits puts the game in a new light, along with the different layout and the incremental improvements.

The improvements is one of the ways they hook you. After dying, you ‘move on’ and you can only spend your rewards after starting a new life. Then you earn more money, die and want to upgrade again, so you press A and pick a new character.

The game adopts a fairly standard ‘retro’ look, with a simple enough style to the castle, better than the original Castlevania but worse than most outings. It’s cute, but the main feature is the way each character looks slightly different depending on their traits and gear. Even though this is a PC game, it feels best on a controller, just like the Metroidvania games of old.

Roguelike games have become increasingly popular of late and it’s great to see one which rewards you for all the time spent by allowing a form of character progression. It’s mitigated to a point by having you lose all your money before entering a castle and each purchased bonus makes all the others more expensive. As much as I have enjoyed the Binding of Isaac and FTL, Rogue Legacy is a game which cares about constant progression even in a roguelike game and lets you invest in dozens of generations of knights all on their doomed quest to conquer the castle.

Rogue Legacy is a very hard game with a superb soundtrack, I fell in love with it a while ago! This is my favorite game of 2013.

Everytime you die, you can choose between 3 randomized children and you get to keep your unlocked weapons, armors and skills. You can find rare chests which contain permanent boosts to your character and the monster difficulty scales based on your level. There are 10+ big bosses to beat and a vast amount of enemies.

I cannot explain how good this game is! It is cheap, addictive and great in all aspects! 41 hours in, I have completed the game and new game+ once. It was well worth playing and I had alot of fun! Lasted longer than most games I've played. Keep in mind that with the infinite new game+ and ranodmly generated levels, it wouldn't surprise me that you would play the game for longer than I did! If you haven't played it yet and are not sure if you should, you can check my personal score below.

Category

Rating /10

Details

Gameplay

9.2

A pure hardcore roguelike action platformer (for those who are not familiar with the term roguelike, it means that the levels are randomized and death is permanent, even though you keep your upgrades and gear in Rogue Legacy). Very hard to master, stiff controls (which fits the genre of Nintendo-era games, execpt for "Down-attack" which is just weird in my opinion), lots of weapon, armors and runes to unlock. You have a full skill-tree you can eventually max-out if you gather enough gold! The game is not frustrating because whenever you die, as long as you gathered enough gold or found +Stats bonus from chests, your character gets stronger. Keep in mind that monsters scales too! Multiple save-files and new game+ (infinite amount of ng+ and new gear for those who can succeed in ng+)! The game could have more monster variety, but for an indie game it's just fine!

Graphics

8.8

Retro graphics that you will just fall in love with! In Rogue Legacy you will find funny, yet beautiful, 2d art with well-done animations that goes perfectly with the style of the game. The UI and menus are simplistic but gives you just enough information, fits with the rest of the art and looks fine overall. Plus, there's plenty of different visual effects you will discover based on your character traits.

Atmosphere

9.5

The soundtrack of Rogue Legacy is EPIC! It is definately one of the best soundtrack I have listened to in my entire gaming career. The sound effects are very satisfying to listen to and they're unique to the game. Your character attacks have a wide bank of sound, so they are not repetitive and they don't get boring to listen to. Rogue Legacy doesn't feature any voiced dialogues, so there is no voice acting for this game.

Performance

9.5

I have noticed barely any bugs while playing through the game. Nothing annoying, just very few glitches, like being able to move during some boss cutscenes (which might be fixed). Also, another thing I need to point out is that in my 41 hours playing this game, I have not crashed a single time, which is great. The game runs totally smooth, I have never experienced any fps drops.

Story

7.5

While the story is not bad, it's really short and litterally only a few pages of text left by Johannes and some boss dialogues. I'm surprised such a wonderful game has got such a simple story. As I said previously, it's not a bad story, just very confusing. As far as the NPCs goes, they don't really have dialogues and there's not many of them, but those dialogues are fine. Honestly, it's an amazing game and the story doesn't really matter in this case, because the gameplay, graphics and sounds are all fantastic!

Singleplayer

9.0

Since Rogue Legacy only offers singleplayer, this will be a resume of my review. Rogue Legacy has a fantastic singleplayer experience, it is totally addicting, it has tons of replayability and it is challenging. Definately a game to try if you are a fan of hard games and like 2d action platformers! There's items to farm, a huge skill-tree to unlock and level-up your stats and skills and unlimited randomly generated levels. Rogue Legacy also features unique boss mechanics, challenge rooms and secrets to uncover

Multiplayer

--

This game features no co-op or multiplayer.

Playtime

9.0

Rogue Legacy takes a good 20 to 40 hours to complete depending on if you want to simply kill the last boss or complete ng+, collect all items, collect all runes, etc... Overall, you will probably spend around 40 hours playing Rogue Legacy, which is huge for a singleplayer indie game. As for the replayability, don't even worry! Multiple save-files, random traits, randomly generated levels, infinite new game+... You will have to play for a while before getting bored of the game!

Prices

9.0

Rogue Legacy is totally worth the asking price of US$14.99 (As of late 2014), as it doesn't have any DLCs or microtransactions, it's developped by indie developpers and it's just a great game overall.

Steam Features

8.0

While Rogue Legacy doesn't have Steam Workshop and is lacking a few Steam features, it does have the most important ones. The achievements are pretty good (and some are quite difficult, because most bosses are difficult anyways) and the game has Trading Cards. The game also features full controller support, which is always a great thing to have in a retro game!

Game Score

9.0

Information

Time

Details

Time required to complete the game.

~16 hours.

Reaching and killing the main boss.

Time required to fully complete the game.

~100 hours.

All bosses, around 10 ng+, all items, all runes, maxed castle... Etc.

Time required to get 100% achievements in the game.

~41 hours.

28/28 achievements working, the last bosses achievements are challenging and "Katagelasticism" is moderately challenging.

I did not enjoy this game. Perhaps it's because I suck at platforming, but I reached a plateau where it starting taking more and more runs before I was lucky enough to earn enough gold that my heir could buy an upgrade. I gave up on the grind.